


Don't Blink, You Might Miss

by NeoVenus22



Category: The 4400
Genre: F/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-19
Updated: 2009-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoVenus22/pseuds/NeoVenus22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She felt a little lonely in a way she couldn't explain, looking at that untouched third plate out of the corner of her eye.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Blink, You Might Miss

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 3x05, 'Gone part 2'

As she kissed Marco, Diana thought fondly that he was probably the best boyfriend she'd had in quite some time. Then again, it was sort of an unfair comparison, like sticking a pear in with a basket of apples and saying it was the best pear there. Still, even with the low standards she'd seemed to set for herself along the way, Marco went above and beyond the call of duty.

"I thought it was just going to be the two of us," commented Marco, his hold on her slackening a little.

"It is," murmured Diana.

His attention was direction somewhere over her shoulder. "Then why are there three place settings?"

Diana turned to the table and noticed it for the first time. He was right. She'd set out three of her mother's plates, three forks, three knives, three napkins...

"Di?" asked Marco, soft and concerned, and she realized she'd gone somewhere else.

"I don't know what I was thinking," she said lightly, trying to pass it off. She kissed his cheek, laughed to cover her embarrassment. "You're lucky I stopped at three."

But Marco was nothing if not attentive, which was usually a good thing and sometimes an irritating thing when she wanted to let a stupid, embarrassing moment slide. "Is everything okay?"

"Of course. I just wasn't paying attention." Diana set the pot of anemones he'd brought her in the middle of the table. "Make yourself comfortable, dinner's ready." And then she had the relief of dishing out dinner —for two, not for three— to distract her and Marco from any further questioning.

But she left the third plate sitting, untouched, in silent vigil for things unknown.

Diana hadn't lied when she'd said Marco was going to get lucky that night. Pleasant enough as dinner was, she felt his leg brushing hers under the tiny table and undeniable need skittering across her flesh. It had been a long day. An easy day, compared to some of her other days, a lot less gunplay and a lot more paperwork, but a long day nonetheless. She was tired and wired and... well.

"Do you need help with that?" he offered, as she got up to clear away the dirty dishes.

"No, it's fine—" she began, and then Marco was at her side, hands barely skimming her body, breath hot against the back of her neck. His proximity made her tingle. "I suppose the dishes can wait."

Marco's hand swooped around her waist. "Yeah, I think they can."

She felt a little lonely in a way she couldn't explain, looking at that untouched third plate out of the corner of her eye. The moment passed as she fell into Marco's embrace, his fingers tight on her spine and the small of her back. He wanted her. He could make her feel so sexy sometimes.

Hands and mouths all over each other, they stumbled their way back towards her bedroom. Marco lost his balance on the uneven edge of the rug. There was a weightless moment as Diana, pressed tightly to him, fell as well. They jerked to an uneven stop, Marco's hand having found support on the door frame to the other room, the one with all her gym equipment. The sight of her treadmill ripped a minute tear in Diana's chest and she broke away from his lips abruptly to say, "Not there."

Marco's eyes flashed confusion for a second. Diana's irrational vehemence had not gone unnoticed, especially considering that Marco had displayed no inclination towards leading her into the room in the first place. Diana passed off her knee-jerk reaction with a hasty smile and dragged him the extra few yards to her bed. He didn't question it because he wasn't an idiot.

Theirs wasn't a clothes-ripping, wherever they could get it kind of sex life. For some reason, they'd always restricted themselves to Diana's bedroom, door closed, as though protecting the delicate sensibilities of roommates and neighbors, though she had none of the former and she was pretty sure none of the latter would much notice or care. It was almost like being back in college. Although she supposed ingrained habits were difficult to break. She was hardly complaining. She'd had zero sex life for quite awhile, this was a big improvement.

Diana straddled Marco's lap, felt the brush of his erection against her thigh. His mouth skimmed knowingly over freshly exposed skin, leaving her with no memory of the clothing being removed in the first place. She took off his glasses and put them on the bedside table, thinking idly that she liked him better with them on. His fingertips dug into her thighs and she promptly forgot her train of thought.

Marco was smart, and what was more, Marco learned quickly and remembered easily. Which was especially useful when it came to sleeping with him, because he knew which buttons to push, and miraculously enough, exactly when to push them. He clued in on her urgency when she manhandled him a little more roughly than perhaps she'd originally intended, flipped her on her back and gave her what she wordlessly requested.

When they were done, Diana slid her knee between Marco's legs, pressed her face against his chest. She folded a section of the comforter over herself, not bothering to slide beneath the blankets, because that would've required moving away from Marco. She remembered bringing Marco home the first time, the uncertainty of it, scared by the force of her wanting, and still undressing in the dark, tangling together only under the covers. Funny how quickly she could just abandon that sense of shame, fall rapidly into this sense of naked comfort.

Marco's fingers, which just minutes ago had been agents of torture, now delicately traced the length of her spine down to the small of her back, the movements getting lazier and slower as he drifted off. He was tactile, and while she found it very grounding, a lot of it she suspected was because he couldn't quite believe they were together, and needed to reassure himself. Marco was painfully easy to read sometimes, though she was glad for some measure of certainty in her life. Marco's admiration for her was unquestioned. And frankly, it was nice to be wanted.

Exhausted as she was, it was easy for her to fall asleep, wrapped up in Marco. It wasn't easy for her to stay that way, though, jolting awake at every little sound in a way she never had before. After the third time gazing blearily at the red numbers of her alarm clock, she caved to latent curiosity and got out of bed, shuffling as quietly in a drawer as she could for a nightshirt. She might have been comfortable being naked in front of Marco, but Diana wasn't the sort of person who could just wander nude around her apartment, even if she lived alone. It felt wrong somehow, like she was offending someone, though she couldn't imagine whom.

Her feet carried her dazedly to the spare room, the one she'd made into a pseudo-gym so she wouldn't have to use NTAC's. Their facilities were excellent, but made her feel a bit like a lab rat sometimes, the implications of which she didn't want to contemplate. The window was open, light spilling in from a streetlight, bouncing off the equipment and casting odd, unnatural shadows. Diana pulled her arms tighter over her chest as she gazed into the would-have-been bedroom. In the dark, her imagination played tricks on her and she could almost see the room otherwise. Not a treadmill, but a bed. Not stark blue walls, but something brighter, filled with color and sunlight. There was something dancing in the corner of her mind, something that she couldn't name. It was on the tip of her tongue, but when she opened her mouth, there was no sound and no hope of it. And no matter what, she couldn't shake the feeling, minuscule though it was, that something was wrong.

Diana saw nothing but felt everything, fleeting notions of laughter and tears and big smiles on tiny faces, and she ached for this thing she didn't know.

"Hey."

Marco's voice was barely a whisper, but his sudden presence made her jump as though he'd fired a gun at her. She waited for her heart to stop thumping. "Hi."

"Everything okay, Di? I woke up and you were gone."

"Uh, yeah. Just... bad dream," she said with a weak smile. "Thought I'd get up and shake it off."

"Okay. Do you want to talk about it?"

Yes. And no. Because the thing she wanted to talk about was not the sort of thing one discussed so early on in a tentative relationship with someone who also happened to be a coworker. Sleepy musings on serious subjects could almost be a death knell to relationships, words that could be played off but never forgotten. Instinct and rationality screamed at her to keep her mouth shut, but Diana stared into Marco's eyes, without glasses for once, and felt a palpable sense of longing for things unknown.

"Have you ever... This is strange, but, have you ever thought," and then her gaze fell back on the room, on the potential lurking in the darkness, as she spoke to no one in particular, "...about children?"


End file.
